ALLUSIVE AFTERSHOCK (27 page)

“You never told me how
the rumor started,” I said.

Court shifted his
weight beside me and I picked up my head and stared at him. “If you don’t want
to tell me, it’s okay. I understand.”

“No, you don’t understand
and I don’t want to tell you. Not yet, anyway.”

That was a weird answer
but I didn’t press the issue. Maybe I didn’t understand, not completely. There
was a reason Court wasn’t telling me. I didn’t know what it was but I figured it
was a good one.

The sudden silence in
the air was enough to make me want to scream. Not wanting to dwell on Court’s
reticence, I said, “Hey, how about some of that hot chocolate Cooper gave us?”

“Sounds good.”

I poured water into the
two tin cups and placed them on the grill Court pulled out from the stove he
found buried under the rubble.

I sneezed again. I
couldn’t wait until that warm water was ready. My scratchy throat begged for
some warmth.

Once the water was hot
and we mixed in the chocolate we sat back against the wall and sipped the warm
cocoa as we stared at the stars. I was right; the warm liquid soothed my throat
as it went down.

Court pointed out
several constellations, some I knew but most I’d never heard of, especially the
ones with Miwok names. I snuggled against him, wishing he would kiss me again,
but a part of me knew that would be so wrong, considering where it might lead
now that Cooper wasn’t sleeping a few feet away. In the cellar, it never seemed
as intense, the kissing, so I hadn’t given it much thought.

“How did you learn all
this stuff anyway? You seem to know more about so many things than normal
boys.” The minute the word “normal” left my lips, I wanted to bite my tongue
off. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that you are not normal. I mean … well, you’re
smarter than any boy I’ve ever known. That’s what I meant by normal.”

“That’s okay. I like
being thought of as not your average school boy by you. How else am I going to
steal your heart away from Max?”

I sat up, hugging my
knees to my chest, and placed my forehead on my arms. I wasn’t sure if Max
owned my heart anymore or not, but I still cared for him. I’d spent most of my
life thinking he was “the one.” I did hope he was okay, wherever he was. “Well,
I’ll probably never see Max again and it’s not like we were boyfriend and
girlfriend or anything. We’re just friends. That’s all.” I kept my face down
and fought back the tears welling in my eyes. I didn’t want Court to see me crying
over Max.

Jeez, Court. What
the hell is the matter with you?
Why did I keep bringing up Max? Adela was
doing fine without me reminding her of Max all the time. She hadn’t kissed me
again since earlier on the road and that was just to prove a point, which she
managed to do very well.

I knew she worried
about her family but there really wasn’t much we could do about them at the moment.
Only time would tell. We needed to focus on ourselves if we were going to stay
alive.

I closed my eyes,
searching my mind for another topic just as the ground started to shake again. I
was too tired to do much of anything. Adela started to get up but I held her
down. “Nowhere to go,” I said. “Just stay with me. We’ll be safe here. There’s
no roof or anything to worry about falling on us. If we move away from the
wall, a tree could fall on us. We’re safer right here.”

When the rumbling
stopped, I kissed Adela on the top of her head and scooted down into the
sleeping bag. “If you stay up there you’ll freeze to death. Care to join me?”

She snuggled in with me
and within a few seconds her breathing became heavy and I knew she was
sleeping. I lay awake for a little while longer and watched the stars until I
finally drifted off to sleep too.

I awoke to sprinkles on
my face and Adela stirring beside me.

“What’s going on?” she
asked.

“Damn, it’s raining.” I
pulled the sleeping bag up and over our heads and we stayed like that the rest
of the night. At first, it was just a light rain and we were fine. But then the
water fell down in dime-sized droplets, pounding against the outside of the
sleeping bag. I heard the sizzle of the fire going out but stayed beneath the
covers; there wasn’t much I could do about it and besides, it was still dry and
warm inside the bag. I silently thanked Max’s mom for buying waterproof
sleeping bags. I wrapped my arms around Adela’s waist and pulled her close
against me. She didn’t seem to mind.

It rained on and off
throughout most of the night. Morning finally came but the rain stayed. “We’d
better just pack up and move on,” Court said as he took the rabbit’s foot out
of the solution, dried it off on one of the kitchen towels before wrapping it
with a dry one and handing it to me. “Here, stick this in your pocket. Once it
stops raining and we rest somewhere, we’ll put it in the sun to dry.” 

I smiled and stuck it
in my pocket. “Thank you, Court.”

We pulled the backpacks
onto our shoulders and took off without eating or drinking anything. The rain
came down in buckets, but once we were back in the woods, the tall evergreens
with their abundance of leaves and pine needles covered the path and managed to
keep it pretty dry. Still, sprinkles here and there and large drips from
branches continued to make it through the cover above.

I sneezed and wished
I’d had a tissue. I stuck my hand in my pocket—that’s where I would have kept it
if I’d had one—and fingered the rabbit foot. He was right. I would think of him
every time I touched it.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I think I’m
catching a cold, though. My throat is scratchy and my nose is run …
Ahhhhchooo.”

We walked for about an
hour, and the rain subsided a bit. We didn’t see a single home or person. Court
led the way and I stayed about three paces behind him. “I think maybe we are too
deep into the mountains; it might be a while before we find shelter,” he said,
glancing at me over his shoulder.

 “Maybe there will be
something around this curve and we can rest. Why don’t you rub that rabbit’s
foot and maybe we’ll get lucky and stumble upon something with a roof.”

We turned with the
trail and Court came to a standstill holding up his hand for me to stop. He
turned and put his finger to my lips in a shushing gesture. He didn’t say
anything and I took his cue to stay quiet. He motioned for me to squat and he
went down at the same time. We stayed hidden behind some bushes as a black bear
walked across the path thirty feet in front of us.

The bear knew we were
there, I sensed it. But I also sensed the bear knew we were not a threat. He
didn’t want any more to do with us than we did with him. Good thing we weren’t
carrying any food. That bear would have headed straight for us and we would
have had to give up our packs and make a run for it.

When the bear had gone
far enough away, I turned to Adela. “It’s clear. He’s gone.”

She stood shivering
with tears dripping down her cheeks. I took hold of her arms, pulled her up,
and held her in mine. “It’s okay. Shhhh, shhhh. It’s okay. He doesn’t want
anything to do with us.”

“It’s just … I was …”
she sucked in a sob, “afraid I would sneeze and give our hiding place away.”
She rubbed her eyes, coughed and then sneezed again. Her face was flushed. I
placed the palm of my hand along her cheek and ear. Her skin was warm under the
wet strands of hair.

She’d been coughing and
sniffling constantly. I was beginning to worry about how sick she might be
getting. “Let’s keep walking. We need to find shelter before you catch
pneumonia.”

Adela’s knees buckled
and she went down. I picked her up and tried to move quickly but it seemed the
faster I walked the harder the rain came down. I could barely see and water
dripped from my nose. I began to worry about finding a place. The rain pelted
down on her cheeks. I tugged at the hood on her jacket, pulling it up over her
head and down over her forehead. It wouldn’t stretch any further, so I turned
her head to the side and pulled the hood over her face, giving her nostrils
just enough exposure to breathe.

We trekked on for about
another half hour. I wanted to make sure we were far enough away from that bear
but I didn’t think Adela would last much longer. I looked beyond a couple of
trees and spied a large piece of plywood just begging me to come and get it.

I set her down between
two trees. Her legs were wobbly and she sank into the wet leaves. “Stay here.” I
shrugged off the backpack and walked over to the board, which looked perfect,
about four feet by three feet. I carried it back and wedged it in between the
two tree trunks a few feet above Adela’s head. I couldn’t have asked for a
better fit. The plywood slipped in at the wider space between the trees a
little higher up and came to rest right at the curve where the area between the
two trunks narrowed.

I took the small tarp
out of the pack Cooper had given me, unfolded it, and placed it on the ground
close to Adela’s hip. “Scoot onto this so you’re not sitting on the wet
ground.”

I spread the rest of
the tarp out and sat next to her. I unrolled the sleeping bag; the outside of
the was drenched but the inside was still dry so I pulled Adela against me and
wrapped the dry side around us. We stayed huddled under the plywood while the
rain poured down around us. The wind picked up along with the rain and it
howled through the trees, biting against our faces. I shielded Adela the best I
could with the sleeping bag. My dad used to say, “Son, there comes a time in
every man’s life, at least once, when he must face the fact that he has been
beaten.” I never wanted to believe him. He was always drunk when he’d start
spouting out stupid sayings like that, and I didn’t want to think that this was
one of those times. But through everything that we’d been through over the past
week, I thought maybe, just maybe we were close to that point. Adela’s fever
only got higher as she sat shivering next to me. We needed a fire but there was
no way to start one in the rain. We also needed some ibuprofen to bring her
fever down.

I wasn’t much of a
church person. My dad never bothered to take me after my mom died. The old man
blamed God for taking her away. I didn’t know if that was true or not but I
knew she believed in God and if he took her, it must have been for a good
reason, so I closed my eyes and prayed.

My eyes popped open at
the rumbling sound of thunder. I hadn’t realized I’d fallen asleep. The rain
had stopped but now lightning lit the sky. Lightning and the forest were not a
great combination. Adela slept next to me, her breaths rumbling with a wheeze
and she was burning up. I had to get her somewhere dry. She wasn’t in any
condition to walk and I didn’t think I could carry her very far.

I looked up at the
plywood above us. I wasn’t too arrogant to take a cue from good old Max.

I pulled the board down
from the trees and placed it on the ground, made two slits at the top with the
knife Cooper had given me, then picked up Adela and lay her on the board. Taking
some of the twine I’d saved, I wrapped it around her and the board several
times, then through the two holes at the top of the board.

I fastened the twine
around my waist, double thick. I picked up both backpacks, and pulled. Man, did
it hurt. The twine dug into my stomach too much and if I kept going, it was
going to slice me in half. I shrugged out of my jacket, shoved it between the cord
and my stomach to give it some cushion, then pulled Adela along behind me. I
trudged on, being careful not to go over the many rocks in the path.

The wind forced us off
the trail and I tripped over a branch and fell on my knees. Luckily, I kept the
board with Adela on it straight and she didn’t slide off. I got up and plodded
on through mud and stacks of wet leaves.

Something was wrong.

My load kept getting
heavier and heavier as I walked. Adela couldn’t be gaining weight. I looked
around at the contraption I’d made and everything seemed to be okay, yet the
weight still increased.

I untied the twine
around my stomach and lifted the board up to look under it. I wasn’t only
dragging the board with Adela on it, but I was now dragging a pile of leaves
and mud that had accumulated under the makeshift travois.

I found a sturdy tree
branch and scraped away the mud and leaves, retied the twine around my waist,
and headed on down the path, keeping the thick branch with me. It was just the
right size for hiking and helped me keep my balance. I heard Adela cough and stopped
to check on her.

I bent down beside her
and she opened her eyes. “Hi, sleepyhead.”

She started to sit,
realized she was strapped to the board and her eyebrows furrowed as she
struggled to move. “What’s going on?”

“No, no, stay down. I’m
pulling you on a board and you’re strapped on so you don’t fall off. You’re
pretty sick, so it looks like it’s my turn to take care of you for a while. I’m
trying to get us to some shelter.”

“Oh … okay.” She closed
her eyes and went back to sleep or maybe she passed out, I wasn’t too sure.
Maybe that was a good thing, because lightning brightened the sky and not more
than four seconds later, thunder boomed out.

Less than a minute
later, lightning cracked again as a bolt shot down from the black sky. A couple
seconds later, thunder blasted out so loudly the ground rumbled under my feet. It
was close. Too close. Another bolt of lightning struck so near to us and so
brightly, I was sure Thor would be right behind it with his mighty hammer. The
thunder roared so loudly I was surprised Adela was still out. She must have
actually lost consciousness like I feared. “God, what now?” I no sooner said
that when another bolt shot down, cracking a tree completely in half about
twenty feet from us, igniting it and the ground around it. I would have thought
the leaves were wet enough to keep the fire from spreading but rain didn’t get
through the tops of the trees as well as it did in the clearing and fire sparks
flew out as flames headed straight for us.